[Somebody raised the following question as a possible question for an
 interview to Richard Stallman. Other people said this issue has nothing
 to do with GPL]

>> * Sometimes, in order to be able to finish modifying software for which
>>    you have the source code, you need to be able to prove that your
>>    modification has no unintended consequences.  Therefore you need access
>>    to a regression test suite.
>>    In view of the above, should such a regression test suite be
>>    considered as "source code" (meaning form in which is the easiest to
>>    modify the software) as far as GPL is concerned?  If not, why not?

I think the original questioner's question was good, though it can be
broadened a bit.
Remember, the GPL isn't just about having the code for free - it's also
about being able to modify it. And for some types of code, you may need
extra things, not just the source code, in order to *modify* (not compile!)
the source code.

Another example besides the test suites comes to my mind from my recent
involvement in writing a Hebrew spell checker (by the way, expect another
release in two weeks!).

In that project we could have released only the final word lists used in
the spell checker - not the automated word-inflection programs that were
used to generate them. This will still leave the user with a working,
100% "free software" spell-checker. But it will not really allow the user
to modify the spell-checker to, for example, check "ktiv chaser", because
that would require systematic changes to the word lists that are too
late to do at that stage. It will also make it very hard for someone to
add more words to the dictionary, basically making the original author
a monopoly in improving the spellchecker.

So sometimes it's not exactly clear what it means for something to be
"free software". In the hspell project we considered several variations,
and finally decided to go with the "free-est" variation we could think
of, and release *all* files we used to make the word lists, even if the
GPL doesn't strictly require that.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |      Tuesday, Dec 24 2002, 19 Tevet 5763


[replying to someone that claimed that "forcing" the government (by way of
 a new law) to use free software is bad, because it deprives the government
 of free choice]

I'm not sure I agree with you here either. Freedom of choice is nice,
but for individuals, *NOT* for government clerks. These should have no
choice but to best serve the country. They should not be able to make
choices that are bad for the country, just because they are the easiest
choices for them personally, or they get kickback from making these
choices.

So "forcing" open source (or more accurately, "standards that have an open
source implementation", which is NOT the same as "open standards", mind you)
on the government might not be as absurd as it first seems.

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |      Tuesday, Dec 24 2002, 19 Tevet 5763